"Then Grantham went on with his plan, changing it somewhat, no doubt, to fit in with this new circumstance. That night he struck himself a painful but not heavy blow on the head with some wooden object--you remember the doctor said the blow was from the side?--and pretended to be lying stunned when you, President Ellsworth, came in. When the police came he, without seeming to want to do so, threw the responsibility of the attack on Gray as much as possible, and told of his projector that had been stolen by his attacker, and that would make a man invisible. He had already prepared a mocking letter addressed to himself as from the Invisible Master, and while talking with Carton and me, laid the letter on the table where I found it. The officers at the door had seen no one go in or out, we knew or thought we knew that someone was at large with an apparatus for attaining invisibility, and since we never dreamed of Grantham having left the letter, we had no doubt whatever but that the Invisible Master, whether Gray or another, had actually entered the room invisibly and left the letter for us. "This was Grantham's second step, his establishing the idea that someone was at large with a projector that could make him invisible, that the Invisible Master was at large and ready to commit any crime. That idea was established in all the city by the newspapers in the next day or so, and so strong was the evidence in the demonstration of his discovery that Grantham had given, and the greatness of his reputation as a scientist, that almost all did believe that such an invisible man, an Invisible Master, was at large. "Now what would naturally result when almost all in the city believed that? Would it not result in many people seeing a chance to commit crimes and then blame them on the Invisible Master? You know that there are hundreds of thousands in a city like this who long to commit some crime, theft or murder or the like, but dare not because there would be no chance to shift suspicion on someone else. A man in an apartment with neighbors all around can't shoot his wife and claim someone else came in and did it, for he knows that in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred it would soon be established that no one had gone in or out of his apartment at that time. But if he could blame it on someone invisible? You see what it means? Grantham had spread, had insisted upon spreading, over all the city the thought that the Invisible Master was at large in it. So at once there would be countless people who would see a chance to commit crimes and blame them on the Invisible Master! The thing was as certain as human nature! CHAPTER V From Beginning to End